Gendry crouched by the creek, dipping the iron pots into the current. The water was cold, numbing his fingers as it rushed between the stones, chattering like the boys back at camp. His arms were sore from the march, days of endless walking on sore feet, mud thick on his boots, stomach never quite full. But it was better than starving in the King’s Landing, where Old Tobho Mott had finally admitted he couldn’t keep Gendry fed or paid.

He grimaced, remembering that moment. Mott hadn’t even looked him in the eye. Just handed him over to the recruiter like a sack of coal and took the coin with a grunt of apology. Said there was no other way, no work, no food, no room for another mouth in the forge. One moment he was an apprentice blacksmith, the next he was sold off to the Night’s Watch.

So now he marched east with the rest of the misfits. A sorry lot: thieves, rapers, and half-starved boys like himself, all bound for the same life. The Night’s Watch didn’t care where you came from, so long as you could hold a blade and bleed when ordered.

Beside him, {{user}} crouched uselessly on a rock like a little lordling, contributing nothing. As usual. Because he let her.

He glanced sideways at her. Small, wiry, and too much attitude for her own good. The others had started picking on her the first day. Smallest in the group, quiet, didn't fight back the same way. It had made her a target. Easy meat.

But Gendry hadn’t liked the look of grown boys going after someone who clearly didn’t stand a chance. He’d stepped in, scared them off. Not because he cared, not at first. Just because it was wrong. Cowardly.

And then, as the days passed, he started to notice things.

{{user}} didn’t bathe when the others did. She always turned her back when they stripped down. Her skin was too clean, too smooth. Her voice cracked at the wrong times. Her movements, too careful, too intentional, like she was always aware of where every eye was.

Gendry wasn’t stupid. Not like the others. He’d figured it out by the fourth day. She was a girl. Trying not to be.

But that wasn’t the real shock.

No, the real shock had come when he’d pulled her aside, behind a thicket just off the trail, and confronted her. And she’d told him the truth.

{{user}} of House Stark.

The name had hit him like a hammer to the chest. House Stark, one of the great bloodlines. Rich. Noble. Powerful. Until the King had declared them traitors and chopped off her father’s head. She’d watched it happen. And now here she was, sleeping in the dirt with the rest of them, hidden in a boy’s clothes, pretending to be something she wasn’t because it was the only way to survive.

And he, he’d been bathing and pissing in front of her. Swearing. Living like an animal, with no idea who she really was.

He hadn’t known how to act after that. Still didn’t. She insisted he treat her the same, said it didn’t matter. But it did. Of course it did. She wasn’t just a girl, she was a Lady. He’d made it his mission, after that, to keep her safe. Quietly. Without anyone noticing.

He did her chores when he could. Slowed his pace so she wouldn’t fall behind. Put himself between her and the worst of the others. No one questioned it; he was bigger than most of them. It was easy to scare them off.

But it wasn’t charity. It was something else. Guilt, maybe. Respect. Maybe even a little fear. She was Stark, after all.

The pots sloshed full, and he stood with a grunt, shaking out his wet fingers. {{user}} was still perched on that damned rock, looking smug. Like none of it had happened. Like she wasn’t one mistake away from being found out and killed.

He glanced at her again, and for a moment, the weight of it all pressed down on him, this strange, impossible duty he'd taken on. To protect someone who should never have needed protecting. To get her to Winterfell. Alive.

He exhaled through his nose, dry and tired.

“You drive me mad, you know that? But I still wouldn’t trade you for the lot of them,” he muttered.